Training, quick action save Carteret leader's life

Sue Book, Sun Journal Staff

Thursday

Apr 18, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 18, 2013 at 4:43 PM

A Craven County’s health and wellness fair last week paid off with life-saving benefits in just three days as two county employees resuscitated a New Bern Riverfront Convention Center visitor whose heart and breathing had stopped.

A Craven County’s health and wellness fair last week paid off with life-saving benefits in just three days as two county employees resuscitated a New Bern Riverfront Convention Center visitor whose heart and breathing had stopped.

“These women are true heroes; they saved his life,” Jack Veit, Craven County manager, this week told the Craven County Board of Commissioners, who agreed with applause for Convention Center Director Mary Harris and employee Michelle Lynn.

Carteret County Commissioner Terry Frank is alive and resting at home now as a result of their safety training and heroic acts of quick response. The women used an automatic electronic defibrillator (AED) and performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to assist Frank.

“I don’t remember any of it, but what went on is a credit to the people who at the convention center, the wisdom of Craven County to put an AED in the building, and CarolinaEast,” Frank told the Sun Journal. “If this incident had happened pretty much any other place, I wouldn’t be talking to you. It was the right place at the right time.”

“Thanks to everybody who had a part in helping me out that day,” he continued. “I called them today and said “Thanks for saving my life.’” I feel good. I’ll be back to work on Monday.”

Frank owns Frank Door Company in Newport.

Neither Harris nor Lynn would take credit without including Dr. Alex Kyhayes, a Chowan County commissioner attending the NC-20 event who did the resuscitative breathing, and Debbie Hodges, Craven County safety officer, who organized the Health and Wellness event that week where Harris and Lynn got a CPR refresher course.

“And you know, the real heroes were the people who were in the room and called down quickly for help,” Harris said. “We keep the AED on site, and anytime there is a situation on the floor, our team has codes: This time it was code blue.”

It was the first code blue ever at a convention center event, she said.

Lynn said, “I was with a client, but Mary called and said ‘Michelle, we have an emergency. We have to go.’ We’ve had other emergencies, but I’d call 911. This time, I got up from the desk and ran out of my office.”

Harris said, “I took the defibrillator with me. When you have death coming at you, you do anything you can, fast. Mr. Frank was on the floor. Michelle did CPR, I monitored the AED machine, and Dr. Kyhayes did the breathing.”

Lynn had never done CPR on a real person, but said her “first American Red Cross CPR instructor said the way to save a life is to the beat of the song by Bee Gees, ‘Staying Alive.’ That song stuck in my head.”

Harris said, “I was looking over at her, and she looked like she was singing as she was mumbling those words.”

“Prior training: It’s amazing how important the training is,” said Lynn, who said the actual use of it “felt like an eternity, but one person in there said it was 10 minutes, another said 15.”

“It shows what training can do to save someone’s life,” Harris said. “We’ll have a refresher for the full staff next month. And the incident also showed how important for the county keep these AEDs on site at all its facilities.”

Frank said, “In a way, my misfortune was a very good thing for many others. Carteret County has AED in many of their buildings, but I can guarantee that soon it will be all of them.

“And the gentleman from Chowan went home and discovered that the batteries were low some of their AEDs,” he said. “It’s kind of like changing the batteries in the smoke detectors; they have to be serviced.”

Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or sue.book@newbernsj.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.

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